Archive for March, 2011

The clients’ top priority was to gain the feeling of maximum security in their future house, which determined the building’s outlook and performance. The house took the form of a cuboid in which parts of the exterior walls are movable. When the house opens up to the garden, eastern and western side walls move towards the exterior fence creating a courtyard. After crossing the gate one has to wait in this safety zone before being let inside the house. In the same time, there is no risk of children escaping to the street area in an uncontrolled way while playing in the garden.

The new building for Ravensbourne, a university sector college innovating in digital media and design, is located on the South-Eastern edge of The O2 building at Greenwich Peninsula. By moving to this extraordinary location, the college aims to deliver education to meet the shifting demands of 21st century learners who expect access to resources and support on demand, and whose needs differ greatly on account of a variety of social and economic factors. In line with these requirements, the new college building simulates the environment and working practices of creative professionals, providing the best in technology and mobile computing in an environment which enables a variety of learning styles.

CDM is a residential development overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the coastline of Manta, Ecuador. The design enhances the existing waterfront by creating a modern living community. The project consists of 26 + 2 houses with a private rooftop swimming pool in a common lounge area.

The 85,000 square metre Dongdaemun Design Plaza establishes a learning resource for designers and members of the public with a design museum, library and educational facilities, whilst the 30,000 square metre Park creates a green oasis within the dense urban surroundings of Dongdaemun, Seoul. The form of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park revolves around the ancient city wall, which forms the central element of the composition, creating a continuous landscape that physically links the park and plaza together. The fl uid language of the design, by inference and analogy, acts as a catalyst by promoting fl uid thinking and interaction across all the design disciplines, whilst also encouraging the greatest degree of interaction between the activities of the Plaza and the public.

While working on this project the main question that was raised was how to integrate a contemporary facility into the existing ambient of a small Istrian town, how to incorporate something modern into the existing area, which in itself entails a string of details and functions that considerably vary from the rural image of surrounding households, all the while striving to keep the balance with the community in general.

“In history there were two basic visions of time, one was cyclical, another linear. Most recent was the linear: darting or plodding forward while dismantling the bridges once crossed. There’s no way back, you can’t return, you can’t reverse. Certainly ours is not cyclical time – nothing repeats now exactly as the last time: ‘last year’ means now ‘outdated’, and ‘the way things were done’ is the way they should be done no more… People who are at the forefront of organizational progress are certainly afraid of sticking to experience and tradition. None of the two models fit liquid modernity. Time is no longer cyclical, but not linear either because events and actions succeed each other randomly rather than in a straight line, and seem to change direction on their way… Living though the moment, one point in time, you can not be sure to what configuration you will eventually belong when scrutinized retrospectively.

Sorte has been built where there was once an old timber house. It has a good influence on surrounding area by making the the outside approach a space of sharing. Because the approach of five households the floor concentrates, it becomes a three-dimensional composition of the vertical direction of each unit.

The object was to be a gathering place for 8 related families. The key concept was to use a round plan, as a circle had been a symbol of gathering for ages. The initial layout was modified, as a semicircle enabled a better look-out towards the nearby lake. The common zone was hidden in a natural slope of the plot. The night zone was located on the upper level and devided into eight units in order to keep each family’s privacy. The form of the units was to correspond with those of the houses in the neighbourhood.

The project arose in untypical conditions: it was supposed to be built in two different places – near Pszczyna and in the outskirts of Berlin. As the second location was still to be chosen, the main goal became to design a house that fits every plot. This is how the idea of standard hOuse emerged, first such an attempt in the KWK Promes history. Round shape of the house makes it easily suitable to any given shape of the site, freedom in the choice of a roof type makes it universal in terms of landscape conditionings, while flexibility of interior plan adopts it to needs of an individual family.